The Venezuelan Revolution: A Critique from the Left

by Daniel S. Benveniste

He arrived in Venezuela in March 1999, just one month after the newly elected president, Hugo Chávez, took office. With plans to start a new life in Venezuela, Daniel Benveniste, a clinical psychologist from San Francisco, would soon become intimately acquainted with Venezuela’s collapsing social, economic and political life under the Chávez regime. Written specifically for the North American reader, The Venezuelan A Critique from the Left takes a critical look at the Bolivarian Revolution, the Venezuelan opposition, the North American Left that has supported the Chávez regime, and United States foreign policy as it relates to Venezuela. After years of being hidden under the rhetoric of a so-called “leftist revolution,” news of Venezuela’s soaring murder rate, food and medicine shortages, deteriorating economy, political prisoners, corruption, and gross violations of civil rights is finally coming to light. This illuminating report of the Chávez and Maduro government’s corrupt, violent, antidemocratic reign of power for the past seventeen years is profoundly disquieting and thought provoking but it also includes suggestions for US foreign policy going forward.

204 pages, Paperback

Published October 26, 2015